


A Plea and Promise

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2020 [12]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:22:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26993611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: Narvin is hardly a stranger to life threatening situations, but neither he nor his friends will ever be used to the moment they genuinely realise that they are not going to make it out alive. That is why they have each other.
Relationships: Leela (Doctor Who)/Narvin (Doctor Who)
Series: Fictober 2020 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952200
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	A Plea and Promise

So this was it, Narvin thought to himself as he fired his staser blindly around the corner. Years of CIA leadership, under constant threat of assassination both from outside forces and his own people, a civil war on Gallifrey, adventures through untold universes, after everything it was a peace talk that went entirely wrong that was going to kill him.

Narvin pointed his hand around the corner he was standing behind and fired again without looking. He used to be a good shot with one of these, but on his recent missions he found he was no longer capable of aiming as well as he used to be able to. Maybe it was because his body was weaker than it used to be after having been drained of possibly all of his regenerations. Maybe the more recent stasers were simply harder to aim due to a difference in weight. Or perhaps he was simply out of practise. He spent a long time not firing any stasers. He had agents to do that for him. 

Naturally, now that former President Romana was Coordinator, Narvin had found himself in the field significantly more. Romana said it was because he was a very good field agent, one of her best in fact. Narvin was happy to take the compliment, but rather suspected that Romana was worried he was too used to being in charge and they would end up clashing. It was an understandable worry, even if it wasn’t something to be concerned about. Narvin trusted Romana. Implicitly.

The shooting stopped. Narvin didn’t know how they hadn’t killed him yet, assuming his wild firing had kept them from advancing on his position, but now they had stopped shooting at him. Perhaps the backup he had sent for had arrived and had either negotiated a ceasefire, or simply killed his attackers. He hoped it was the latter. He didn’t need more wars on his shoulders.

Narvin slowly leaned his head just past the corner to get a look at what was going on. As soon as he did, another hail of shots missed him by inches.

“Stupid!” he berated himself out loud he was so incensed. He was smarter than that. He quickly ducked behind cover again, but just a moment too slow. A blast hit the wall just where his head had been a second ago, and while the blast itself missed, saving his head from being blasted off of his body, he felt a surge of heat and several shards of the wall hit the side of his head at tremendous velocity and everything went dark.

His sight didn’t stay dark, but everything was blurry and out of focus. He couldn’t see where he had fallen, but he realised he was now on the floor, his ears ringing and his head in agony. He couldn’t have been out for more than a few seconds, but that just meant that his foes were fewer seconds away from finishing him off. He tried lifting his head to move, find somewhere to hide, but it erupted in pain and his vision fell even further out of focus. There was no way he was going to be able to move in time. So, this really was it, he thought.

He closed his eyes and waited, and soon he heard shots fired. He felt nothing, though, and the shots sounded like they were being fired away from him. More sounds joined the chorus, heavy boots on the ground, grunts of effort, cries of pain and indistinct sounds of heavy objects hitting the floor. After the cacophony died down, Narvin heard running towards him, and scuffling as someone knelt down next to him. He vaguely heard a sound, the person rummaging in some container, before a thick liquid hit the wound on his head and he felt it being spread around. He wanted to object, but his muscles wouldn’t respond, and he soon realised that whatever the substance was was numbing the pain from the explosion.

“Narvin,” a voice, he could tell it was saying his name but the ringing in his ears was still too loud to make it out. “Narvin, can you hear me?”

He tried to speak, to respond, to say yes, he could hear them, but his mouth wouldn’t move the way he commanded. A noise, painfully undignified, came out of his mouth, but he guessed it was identifiable as a confirmation as the voice continued.

“That is good, you are still conscious,” it said. “You have taken a bad injury to your head and you have been burned in several places, but if we can get you medical treatment soon you will be fine. Romana is on her way. Do you understand me, Narvin?”

The ringing died down a little as Narvin tried to focus on the voice. He still couldn’t hear it well enough to tell who it was, but something about it made him feel somehow reassured. A feeling he didn’t have very often, and admitted to having even less. An inexplicable warmth in his hearts.

“Narvin?” the voice said again, and finally the ringing had died down enough and his mind had cleared just enough for him to piece together who it was.

“...Leela?” Narvin managed to get out.

“Yes!” Leela confirmed, sounding overjoyed to have gotten a coherent response. Narvin tried to lift his head up to see her, see her face, but again the fire on the side of his head roared in protest and he dropped back to the ground with an involuntary groan.

“Do not try to move,” Leela instructed. “You have been hit badly in the head, and your senses will be impaired for a while. Just stay here. I have dealt with the…” Leela paused. Narvin assumed she was trying to remember the name of the aliens he had been negotiating with. In his current state, Narvin couldn’t remember the name either. Eventually Leela gave up. “I have dealt with the aliens, they will no longer pose a threat.”

“...are they…?” Narvin tried to speak.

“They are not dead,” Leela reassured him. “Only unconscious. Do not worry.”

Narvin felt a small wave of relief that only partially registered in his still barely aware mind. Hopefully this wouldn’t lead to war. Technically, they did fire the first shot. He thought. His memory was still too fragmented to remember.

Suddenly the edges of Narvin’s vision faded into darkness, and the void started spreading. Leela must have noticed something, his eyes closing maybe, as panic crept into her tone.

“Narvin?” she asked. “Narvin, please, stay awake, help will be here very soon, I promise. Narvin? Narvin, please do not die.”

Narvin tried to grit his teeth, but his mouth still wasn’t working entirely. Regardless, he jerked his head upwards as hard as he could manage. It wasn’t very hard, but it still made his head flare up in pain again. He groaned, and regretted it as his mind went numb and his vision went even less focused, but it had worked, the darkness was receding. He may have been in much more pain, but the pain would keep him awake.

“Narvin, do not-” Leela started before she realised what he had done. “Oh, I see. That was not wise of you, you know.”

“You asked me not to die,” Narvin stated, finally able to form complete sentences thanks to the jolt the pain had given him, adrenaline flowing back into his veins.

“Yes, I did,” Leela responded, confused. “We have been through too much together for you to die here.”

“But you asked me,” Narvin repeated. She wasn’t understanding what he meant. “You normally aren’t so polite.”

“Are you expecting me to threaten you?” Leela asked, and Narvin couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. “That I will kill you if you die? Is that what you were waiting to hear?”

“Honestly, yes,” Narvin almost laughed. It hurt to laugh, but it still felt good. “I was expecting you to threaten to stab me at least once if I didn’t survive.”

It was Leela’s turn to laugh, and hearing it brought Narvin’s senses back into focus significantly. He still wasn’t going to be able to move, but he could see and he could hear better than he could. He kept his head still, but moved his eyes to meet Leela’s. They held an infinite well of concern, but relief mixed with it in equal measure.

“I am not going to threaten you, Narvin,” she reassured him. “You mean too much to me for me to do so, even in jest.”

“I mean too much?” Narvin tried to make some form of joke to lighten the mood. He couldn’t tell if it worked. “I had no idea, Leela. Usually you’re too frustrated with me.”

Leela didn’t respond, which Narvin thought initially was odd. Then, she looked around furtively, and satisfied with whatever she saw or did not see, quickly leaned down and kissed him. Every thought he had had in his mind in that moment dissolved away. She pulled away almost immediately, but it was enough.

“Promise me that you will not die.”

“Leela,” he started but was interrupted by another sound, a wheezing, groaning noise all around them. The corridor faded from sight in waves, gradually replaced by a sterile white room much wider than the corridor was coming into sight. Narvin appreciated the sight, but the distortion to his eyes and the overbearing noise all around him made everything start to go dark again as he felt the dull pain in his head coming back. He shut his eyes tight as the noise stopped and was replaced by the low hum of the time rotor, and the returning sound of boots on the ground.

“Thank you, Leela,” another voice came, and Narvin slowly realised who it was. Madam Coordinator Romana, come in person to collect her injured deputy. “We wouldn’t have found him without you.”

“Make sure he is looked after,” Leela demanded as Narvin felt rough hands grasp him as gently as they could and lift him slowly onto a softer surface than the floor. As he was lifted from the ground his vision went almost entirely dark, but he was able to sneak one last look at Leela before he lost consciousness. He didn’t know if he would remember what had happened before the TARDIS arrived.

But he deeply hoped he did.


End file.
